The private ownership of pay telephone technology has provided an added source of revenue for a variety of businesses for some time. The actual cash collection from the coins deposited by users of pay telephone stations is an important aspect of such revenues. More recently, due to technological advances and changes in the business climate, businesses have been able to add income from certain long distance telephone calls. With the use of an Automated Operator Service (AOS), a private owner of a telephone can bill users of the telephone for both inter-LATA and intra-LATA long distance calls.
While AOS systems can generate revenue where none existed before, they are very inefficient. An AOS usually operates from a central office. Hence, in the case of an intra-LATA call, the call may have to travel hundreds of miles and finally terminate a few miles from its origination point. The unnecessary miles traveled through the network are expensive and this cost is usually borne by the user through higher long distance rates, or by the owner of the telephone through lower commissions.
In addition, private owners of pay telephones have heretofore lost a considerable amount of revenue because of their inability to charge for calls placed using billing account numbers made on their pay telephones. These calls are billed directly by the primary telephone company to the account of the appropriate party leaving the owner of the telephone station with no method for charging for these calls. Hence, although such calls have been made on the privately owned and maintained pay telephone, the primary telephone companies have reaped the benefit of placing these calls.
Therefore, a need has arisen for a telecommunications system which can automate and simplify the processes currently handled by a traditional AOS. Specifically, a need has arisen for a pay telephone station which can automatically route long distance calls without the intervention of an outside service, and which allows the pay telephone owner to charge revenues for the completion of a collect call, a call placed using a telephone billing account number or a call placed using a variety of other billing access formats.